“I’m not doing this anymore,” I said, seething with everything tumbling around in me. “This passive-aggressive, scoreboard-of-my-life thing where you get to have a front row seat you haven’t earned.”
“Sage, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“The whole world has access to you now,” she said with a matter-of-fact air that grated my last nerve. “You’re with Aiden Santos, the hottest thing The Surge have seen since that rookie shook up the league. Everything you do, every word, every move—it’s all under a microscope. And that includes me.”
Shit.
I hated that she was right yet again. If they looked into me, they’d find her. And if they looked into her, they’d dredge up all the crap about my dad, my brother… This wasn’t a fuzzy picture snapped late at night. This was my life. The full scope of it hit me all at once. My life. My world. Now completely public. And my mother? Right there, already poking through the wall I’d been building around myself for years.
She leaned in, eyes softening, trying to bridge whatever canyon she thought was between us. But I couldn’t. Not this time. Not now. Not after everything I’d fought to keep mine. I wanted none of it—none of her judgment, none of her ownership masquerading as concern.
I stood abruptly, chair scraping back against the diner floor. Silverware rattled. Napkins fluttered. But I didn’t give a shit, and I didn’t look back once as I stormed out.
Out of her world. Out of her reach. Out of the lunch we were never really having.
25
Aiden
The locker room was thick with the smell of sweat, tape, and the usual pre-game chaos, but it all felt different tonight. Every noise was somehow sharper, as though it was pressing against my skull. I wanted to breathe, to focus, tobe the player I was before all this bullshit,but my mind kept circling back to pressers, appearances, photo shoots, the constant scrutiny. Every move I made, every word I spoke, felt like it had a weight I wasn’t ready to carry.
I found Grayson by his bag, tightening his gloves with the calm that only a captain could wear. I leaned against the lockers, voice low. “I don’t know if I can do this. The game’s fine, I can handle the ice. But everything else… it’s too much.”
He didn’t look up at first, just tightened the last strap on his shin guard, slow and methodical. Then he did, finally, eyes catching mine.
“You think too much,” he said, almost too casually. “The game doesn’t care about the cameras. The people yelling at you on the internet don’t matter. You play. That’s all.”
I tried to nod my understanding, but it felt like a lie. My brain refused to quiet down.
We stood together a few minutes longer, listening to the buzz of the crowd creeping into the arena, the first roar filtering through the walls. Two-nothing in the series. Surge were supposed to have momentum, supposed to feel in control. Ishouldhave felt that.
Instead, I was drowning in everything I’d ever wanted, realizing for the first time that what I wanted came with an avalanche I wasn’t prepared for. Every dream had a price, and the bills were coming due faster than I’d expected.
We laced up, and started walking toward the tunnel. Grayson clapped a hand on my shoulder, an anchor I didn’t really feel. “Focus on the ice, man. The rest will figure itself out.”
I nodded, but I knew I wouldn’t. Not yet. Not with every eye, every camera, every expectation pressed against me the way it was now. The weight of it all was suffocating. And yet, somehow, I had to play.
We hit the tunnel. Lights flickered over the boards. The crowd’s roar hit, shaking the floor. I took a breath. Tried to block out the noise. Tried to be just a player. But this wasn’t just hockey anymore. This was everything, all at once, and I didn’t know if I could give them what they wanted.
The arena was a furnace of noise, LA’s fans jeering, chanting, stamping—everything a home crowd could throw at a visiting team. I skated onto the ice with that familiar crackle in my veins, but it felt more like static in my brain, disorienting instead of exciting. I couldn’t shake it, like Grayson had told me to. Everything else kept gnawing at me.
We won the faceoff, and for a moment, the Surge looked sharp. Landon streaked down the left wing, Grayson threading a pass through him, and I moved to catch it in the slot. Perfect set-up. A clean shot opportunity. But my stick felt heavy, and mytiming was off by milliseconds. Enough for Landon to miss the rebound.
The puck slid harmlessly along the boards, and the LA crowd roared their approval. My heart sank.
Minutes later, another chance presented itself. I passed, circling, trying to force play in the thick of LA’s defensive wall. Grayson was wide open, and I made the pass… too late. It missed him completely. Landon had to backtrack, but tripped up and missed the shot, then suddenly we were scrambling to defend. LA capitalized, one of their wingers sneaking in for a neat goal past Hunter. 1-0.
No amount of talking myself down helped. Every time the puck came near, my mind short-circuited: What if Sage saw this? What if the press dug into this game the way they had into the Purple Rose photos? Every minute I wasn’t perfect was being measured somewhere, by someone.
We managed to equalize mid-first. Landon tipped in a pass I barely delivered, but it felt hollow. We tied it 1-1, and I thought maybe I could pull it together. Then another play went sideways. A pass I overcommitted on, a missed check, and LA streaked past us again. 2-1. The jeers from the fans who’d followed us there were a physical wall against my chest, every punch of sound knocking my confidence lower.
I tried to force the game harder, skating faster, talking louder, positioning better. But my heart wasn’t in it. I stayed a step behind, my instincts dulled by the pressure of it all. Grayson called for a line change, and Coach reeled me in.
“Shawn, get in there. Aiden, sit!”
My stomach dropped as I sank onto the bench, Shawn sliding into the line like a fresh shot of adrenaline. Like magic, the team found the rhythm that had been eluding them all night. The puckmoved crisply, passes connected, and a goal actually went in. It looked so easy when I wasn’t there fucking it all up. When they had someone who wasn’t dragging them down with a thousand and one distractions raging in him.
